The Perils of Immortality
by coffee-not-decaf
Summary: The Rift monitor is acting up again, but Jack knows exactly who's causing the disturbance.


"Huge fluctuation of energy on the Rift monitor! It's something…something…An error came up in the system, Jack! I can't tell anything about what caused the spike, other than that it was definitely a big one."

Jack peered over Toshiko's shoulder to get a good glimpse of the problem at hand. Looking over her while she worked was usually something frowned upon at her station, but apparently the possible dangers of Rift activity outweighed her discomfort at others watching her.

The screen did indeed have a large red error sign beeping and blinking at them, but it was one that Jack recognized well. Slowly, a smile spread over his features as he thought of the only person he had ever met who could cause such a difficulty to arise.

"What is it, Jack?" Gwen asked from behind him as she set the file she had previously been examining down onto Toshiko's desk. Owen and Ianto's attentions were captured as well, for their eyes and most likely ears were trained on Jack from over near the coffee machine. All of them awaited Jack's answer with a mixture of adrenaline and fear.

"I think an old friend of mine has come back to town," Jack smirked at his own pun. Not that anyone else would understand the humor behind it, but still. It was a good pun.

"Your…your doctor?" Toshiko gave him a sideways glance as the team appeared to stand straighter with more attention. They'd all heard a few stories about Jack's adventures with the Doctor, and how wherever he showed him, trouble was sure to follow.

"Not him," Jack replied and watched the team deflate a little. "But who it actually is might shock you more."

"Don't tell me John's back in town," Ianto groaned with dread as Jack shook his head, chuckling.

"Not John, either. This one's more apt to save Cardiff than destroy it. He probably_ has_ saved it before, actually. More than once."

"Jack, stop being purposefully mysterious and just tell us who the hell this guy is," Owen bit out, snapping a medical glove off his hand. "And how long it's been since you slept with him."

"Now why would you assume that?" Jack's four friends gave him identical raised eyebrows. Jack sighed, relenting to their wishes. "Fine. How about you come and meet him? He can introduce himself better than I can."

"How do you know where he is?" Toshiko asked, forehead creasing in confusion. "The error popped up before I could lock in a location for the energy spike."

"The two of us have a spot," Jack clarified for them.

"Oh, a spot," Gwen rolled her eyes in a long suffering manner. "That's really supporting your claims that you and he haven't fucked."

"Look, do you want to come or not?" Jack asked, striding across the room to grab his military coat off of the area overlooking the medical bay. "Meeting him isn't something you want to miss out on."

"But how can you be sure that it's who you think it is?" Ianto queried.

"Trust me, I know," Jack cut the discussion off, as he could see Owen and Gwen opening their mouths to argue against his case as well. "Now come on! If anything will ever shock you all, this will be it."

It wasn't that Gwen was worried about Jack's apparent excitement at seeing his "old friend."

Well, yes, it was that she was worried. The last time Jack had gotten a message from an old friend, she had nearly died. Well, nowadays, there were more times when she was nearly dead than when she wasn't, but that was beside the point.

The point was that Jack had been grinning like a madman ever since the Rift alert had popped up – and how the hell he could tell who the perpetrator was just from the kind of error that appeared onscreen was beyond her – and was driving even faster than usual through the busy Cardiff streets.

It didn't take Gwen long to figure out they were heading for the pier. She exchanged a look with Ianto, who was sitting next to her, and they had rolled their eyes simultaneously. She hoped that Ianto wouldn't be too glaringly jealous of Jack's mystery man. Lord knew she would be if she was in his place.

Toshiko was probably the calmest about the situation; she was sitting on Ianto's other side in the back seat without a comment, just an occasional glance at her screen. Owen was questioning Jack incessantly in the front, and Jack was giving vague, entirely unhelpful answers.

"Who is he?"

"You'll see."

"Is there any chance he's going to kill us?"

"Not at all."

"Does he have the capability of killing us?"

"Definitely. But he won't."

"That's not especially reassuring."

"Look, this is going to be brilliant, okay?" Jack waved off another impending question. Owen glared, but didn't get a response. "You lot are really going to enjoy this."

"Somehow I doubt that," Ianto's disgruntled reply bit through the air, and Gwen found herself agreeing with him.

A few minutes later, Jack rolled the van into an empty parking space next to the docks. Not surprisingly, there weren't many people out walking; the day was cold and the gray skies signified that rain was about to dump upon them mercilessly. There were a few stragglers, though, and Gwen squinted at each of them through the tinted windows, trying to see if any of them looked distinctly out of the ordinary.

"Everybody out!" Jack very nearly bounced out of his seat, a manic grin fixed onto his face. Toshiko turned to Gwen, vaguely alarmed. It had been quite a while since something excited Jack this much.

Following in suit, the other four members of the team followed their leader outside. Gwen pulled her jacket more tightly around herself at the sudden chill.

"Someone's in a bad mood," Jack's grin remained undeterred, even in the face of the weather. "No wonder he's come here."

"Are you saying this bloke can affect the _weather_?" Owen asked, voicing the rest of the group's incredulousness. "What the hell, Jack?"

"What stories have you been spreading now, Harkness?"

A voice crept up from behind them, and Gwen whirled around, three members of the team mirroring her movements. Her hand slid onto the cool metal of the gun on her belt at the impeding threat.

But the only person standing there was a man, attractive in an off kilter way, maybe two or three years younger than her, skinny but with broad shoulders covered in a dark leather jacket, and dark, messy hair that accentuated his electric blue eyes. If she reached out, she could probably cut herself on his cheekbones. He looked relatively harmless, but after over a year in this job, Gwen had learned that nothing was as it appeared. He could be an alien, after all; her hand stayed on her gun.

"Only good ones," Gwen nearly let go of the gun in shock as Jack leaned over to embrace the man in a tight hug. She chanced a glance at her team members; Toshiko's face mirrored her confusion, Owen's was wary, and Ianto's jaw was locked as he glared at the man, most likely out of jealousy.

As they broke apart, the man turned his crystal eyes on them and said "So, are you going to introduce me or not?"

"This is my team," Jack said with a hint of pride in his voice as he looked over the four of them as they stood in a straight, defensive line. He gestured to each of them as he said their names. "Owen Harper, Toshiko Sato, Ianto Jones, Gwen Cooper. Meet Merlin."

Whatever Gwen had been expecting, it wasn't this. Her jaw dropped as her mind whirred. How the – what the – what the fuck was happening? She barely understood the impact of the words.

The rest of the team shared their mentality, as the man – Merlin, apparently – gave them a small and unsure smile.

"Merlin?" Owen questioned, barking out a laugh. "Come off it. You've got to be joking."

"Kind of wish he was," Merlin's tone was light. "I am Merlin, though. Nice to meet you all."

"_The_ Merlin?" Ianto, surprisingly, sounded similar to Owen in terms of disbelief. "Like, King Arthur's Merlin?"

"Oh, I like him," Merlin's grin doubled and Ianto looked vaguely perturbed. Merlin offered to explanation for his comment, just continued speaking. "Yes, the Merlin. Magic, swords, sorcery, the works."

"There's such a thing as magic?" Gwen spoke for the first time. "Jack, aren't there just aliens? And alien technology? You've never said anything about _magic _before."

"It's rare," Jack said, shrugging it off. "We've never encountered it before, there's hardly any left in the world."

"Most of it is all bottled up in me," Merlin winked at them. "I'm the last sorcerer left."

For a moment, Gwen was violently reminded of Jack on his worst days, his most bitter ones, where the untrained ear heard jokes and laughter, but underneath it all was a dark undertone, one of loneliness and depression, of a monster clawing on the edges of a cage, dying to see the light of day.

"That's – that's – " Ianto was at a loss for words. Toshiko, however, was not.

"Incredible," she said faintly. "Absolutely incredible."

"Not really," Merlin seemed a tad uncomfortable with the attention. Jack noticed this, and immediately drew it back onto himself, one of his greatest talents.

"Yep, Merlin and I met back when in the 1800s. I was in a bar fight and someone shot me; Merlin recognized me for who I was and dragged my body out before anyone could realize that I wasn't dead."

"Was that the first time you shagged?" Owen's bluntness didn't shock anyone, not even Merlin, who only raised an eyebrow.

"These are the kinds of things you're saying about me, Jack?" He shook his head in mock disdain. "Very mature."

"I didn't say a word!" Jack protested, but then smiled. "Besides, it's not like he's wrong."

Gwen wanted to be surprised, she really did, but prolonged exposure to Jack just caused an eye roll. "Honestly, Jack, do you have any sense of decency?"

"She's right," Merlin flashed Gwen a brilliant smile that might have caused her cheeks to flush. "You're incorrigible."

"That's his middle name," Ianto quipped, causing a laugh.

"That it is," Merlin said. "Well, still, it's not like I'm any better. It's been, what, twenty years?" He directed at Jack.

"Something like that," was his reply. "Why haven't you stopped by? That's far too long to go."

Merlin's eyes went down as he shrugged, burrowing himself deeper into his jacket. "It's not like you're going anywhere. I've spent the last couple years up around Avalon. Thought I felt something. I was wrong."

Jack patted Merlin's shoulder. Gwen exchanged a confused glance with Ianto before an understanding that she didn't possess bloomed on his face.

"Avalon…Where King Arthur was sent to sleep, according to some myths," he mused, and Merlin's eyes snapped to his in an instant. "The Once and Future King."

"You're a quick one," Merlin's voice was more strangled than before, almost holding back in a way. "I think you're a little like me, Ianto Jones. Well, a little like who I used to be."

If Ianto had still been harboring feelings of jealousy, they appeared to have evaporated in that instant as he looked at Merlin, a mixture of incredulity and awe on his face.

Merlin was still speaking, but he had turned back to Jack. "Please tell me that you're with him now," he said, pointing to Ianto. "Please."

"…Yeah," Jack said after a moment, with a slight smile. "Yeah."

Yep, Gwen chuckled. Ianto's jealousy was definitely gone.

"So are you, like, waiting for him?" Toshiko questioned. "Arthur? Is he coming back?"

"Hopefully," Merlin's voice gained a hard edge. "Hopefully someday."

"I've always told him that if he doesn't and he's stuck here for all eternity, the two of us can just shag ourselves to death," Jack was exuberant again.

"I'm still going to take you up on that, if the opportunity arises," Merlin chuckled.

"So, do you want go to see the Hub?" Jack asked after a beat of silence. "It's very nice, much classier than the last time you were here. We have a pterodactyl now."

"A pterodactyl?" Merlin raised an eyebrow. "This I have to see."

"Hop in," Jack said, gesturing to the car. "We'll give you a lift."

Merlin simply smiled in response.

Later that evening, Merlin was passed out on their couch, his body somewhat smaller and more vulnerable in sleep. They had spent the vast majority of the afternoon showing Merlin around their workplace; he was intrigued by everything there, although not surprised or shocked, like most visitors. Gwen figured this was only expected. After all, the man had been alive longer even than Jack. Maybe even longer than Jack's Doctor.

Toshiko and Owen had gone home about an hour ago and Ianto was finishing up his paperwork for the evening, when Gwen wandered into Jack's office just before she was about to head home to Rhys. He was bent over a file for one of the cases they'd been working on the week before, and seemed to be scratching away diligently with a pencil. She cleared her throat as he glanced upward.

"I'm going home," she told him. "Am I allowed to…erm…tell Rhys about our visitor?"

"If you must," Jack said, shrugging. "But don't think I'm going to go through introductions again."

Gwen would have rolled her eyes, but she just sighed. "He reminds me of you, you know."

Jack nodded sadly, setting down the papers as he met Gwen's eyes with his own. "He's worse than me. I waited for the Doctor for a couple hundred years. Eventually chose something different. Him…He'll never choose anything different. He'll always be waiting for Arthur. And he doesn't exactly have much love in his heart for anyone else."

Gwen wondered, with a pang, if Jack had fallen in love with him. She dismissed the notion, but at the same time, she had to think. Jack had been lonely, on the cusp of immortality, and Merlin had been an attractive, mysterious stranger, one who knew exactly what he was going through, one he would never have to say goodbye to. Ever.

She didn't ask, though, just nodded on the way out the door.

Perhaps she'd mention it tomorrow.


End file.
